New Lost and Found park offers shelter dogs a lovely spot to drool and bounce around

Lost and Found park offers shelter dogs a lovely spot to play

Life is improving for Spiro, a four-year-old American bulldog, Dyar, a two-year-old who is part Newfoundland and part St. Bernard, and all the other dogs awaiting adoption at Toronto’s North District Animal Shelter.

On Thursday morning at 11 a.m., city councillors and others will cut the ribbon for Lost and Found Park, behind the shelter at 1300 Sheppard Avenue West. The park features a network of coloured rubber paths, young maple trees, shrubs and Virginia creeper, covered with wood chips. Dogs can run and play, limb ramps, run through tunnels and even do their business against two donated vintage cast-iron fire hydrants.

You really need things for dogs to do

“You really need things for dogs to do,” says Robert Meerburg, a provincial offences officer at the shelter. On Wednesday afternoon he brought out K9 Cody, a yellow lab who lives here (and whom Mr. Meerburg takes to schools to teach dog awareness), to give the new park a test run. Cody ran straight up a hill of special dog-resistant grass at the back of the park but struggled a bit with the steep ramp to an elevated dog house.

“We may need to screw some 1 X 2s to that to help the dogs,” muses Sheena Rodda, supervisor here.

Among Toronto’s four shelters, this is the first dog park. The park, built entirely with donations, also features an area where the public can bring dogs to run off-leash.

The park’s genesis traces back to Const. Ashley Wolosinovsky of Toronto Police 32 Division. Six months ago she founded Best Friends Forever, bringing “at risk” youth from three high schools to walk dogs at this shelter. The program allows the students to befriend police in a non-threatening environment, she says.

The police and students from Northview Heights, William Lyon Mackenzie and Blessed Pope John Paul II decided the dogs needed a shady spot to play, and conceived the park idea. Best Friends Forever raised $1,000 at a barbecue at the end of May here. On Thursday they will donate the cash to the new park.

Carson Arthur, an outdoor design expert who appears on the TV show Room to Grow, donated his time to design the park and manage the construction.

Still, if you plan to attend Thursday’s event, be forewarned: Ms. Rodda might not let you leave without a kitten (the shelter is overrun with them), a guinea pig, a rabbit, or maybe even Dyar, the 60-kilo black and white dog.

“He’s a big slobbery boy,” Ms. Rodda says. “As long as you’re not fussy and house-proud and you don’t mind some slobber, he’s for you. He is fine with children but he might bowl them over.”

Until someone takes him, Lost and Found Park offers Dyar a lovely spot to drool and bounce around.
National Post